DETROIT -- Mike Babcock is a veteran coach who recognizes when his Detroit Red Wings have dug themselves into a hole.

He also knows it isn’t easy to climb out of such a predicament.

He also knows full well that games such as Wednesday’s 4-1 defeat to the Nashville Predators won’t cure Detroit’s ills.

Red Wings players and Babcock used words like "unacceptable" and "embarrassing" to describe the second loss this week at the hands of Detroit’s Central Division foes, who have narrowed the Red Wings’ first-place lead to five points.

"I’m glad they agree with me," Babcock said. "It’s absolutely unacceptable to compete like we did. You’re not going to be successful in anything in any walk of life working that hard. It’s beyond ridiculous. Obviously, we’ve got tons of work to do. I thought we were coming out of what we were in, but we’re not."

What the Red Wings (32-16-6) are in, is a slump of three losses in their past four games. In those contests, they’ve been outscored 12-4, including 7-1 by Nashville. Goaltender Pekka Rinne, in his third season with the Predators, is now 7-2-2 in 11 career games against the Red Wings after posting a 3-0 shutout Saturday in Nashville.

"We can play a lot better," said Red Wings forward Henrik Zetterberg. "We’ve shown that. At the beginning of the year, we were winning a lot of games. We’ve just got to go back to the way we played then and play a little easier. We’ll turn it around. I’m not worried about that. A little adversity is good sometimes."

The Red Wings have faced their fair share of it in first periods this season, and Wednesday was no different.

Nashville (29-19-7) took an early 1-0 lead a little more than 3 minutes into the first period when forward Martin Erat beat Red Wings goaltender Jimmy Howard gloveside with a wrist shot from the left circle. About 10 minutes later, at the 13:13 mark, Predators forward David Legwand notched a rebound goal to boost their lead to 2-0.

"I thought we got out-worked in the first period," Detroit captain Nicklas Lidstrom said. "They scored two easy goals on us. We’re not helping our goalie at all. (Howard) is making the first save, and we’re not there to help him out on the rebounds. That’s been costing us games."

The Predators connected twice more -- center Colin Wilson’s 13th of the season about a minute into the second period and a power play goal from forward Sergei Kostitsyn -- before Babcock pulled Howard in favor of Joey MacDonald.

Howard stopped 12 of 16 Nashville shots, while MacDonald stopped all 14 shots against him. Detroit defenseman Ruslan Salei’s first goal of the season kept the Red Wings from being shut out for the third time in four games.

"We’re looking at throwing more pucks at the net and getting pucks back," Lidstrom said. "We’re too much one and done. One shot, one chance and they’re going the other way with the puck."

The Red Wings also went 0-for-3 on power-play opportunities, furthering their recent man-advantage woes. In the past 11 games, Detroit is 2-for-33 (5.7 percent).

"We’ll have to get to work (Thursday) in practice," Babcock said. "If we’re not going to work in games, you can bet we’ll work in practice. We’re gonna get some work ethic back, because there’s no way we’re going to have 22,000 people watching us play like that. That’s absolutely unacceptable. ... Mental and physical, we’re awful."